The proof of the pudding is in the eating

This is one of my favourite sayings about how life is. You only learn about things when you live it, experience it. You can read all you want about any issue, place or life experience but until you have been there and worn the tee shirt (another popular modern saying) you don’t know what it is really like.

When I was younger I wondered what it would be like to live in Africa or Asia and I read everything I could on both parts of the world and watched everything I cold on the box (TV). But it was not until I went and lived in both regions (as I have in real life) did I find that what I had thought it would be like was not what it was really like in many cases.

It was only when I lived in a Muslim majority country for the first time did I really start thinking about Islam and what it was. It was only when I spent significant amounts of time in Muslim majority countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia that a certain understanding of Islam was imparted to me – through my own interactions with Islam and experience of it. Being married to someone that grew up in a Muslim majority country as a non-Muslim minority has given me further insight. Yet I did not live it as a Muslim and when I lived in Muslim majority countries as a non-Muslim I was afforded certain protections not afforded to a person who grew up in these countries. This is why it is important (vital in my view) to listen to those that have lived it and come through it. Whether they be from a Muslim background or from non-Muslim minorities. They have powerful voices that need to be listened to if we hope to understand Islam as it is like in the real world.

In this video from Ex Muslims of North America Hiba Krisht speaks about the reality that many Muslim women face each and every day. It is in stark relief to Muslim women that are used as poster children of the Muslim feminist `movement’.

Many in the West are hopeful that Islam will undergo a reformation at the hands of Muslim women. That it is just a matter of time before Muslim women will wise up, figure out what must be done, and stand together in unity to march for their equality and human rights.

EX-Muslims are seen by apostates by Islam and in many ways the worst of the worst. Is it any wonder they suffer demonisation and discrimination for no reason other than they believe in freedom of religion and conscience.

Legitimate human rights abuses toward Muslim women, eg the burkini ban, are so disproportionately focused on in comparison to a far more staggering scale of transgressions and abuses towards women in Muslim communities globally.

In this video from Ex Muslims of North America Hiba Krisht speaks about the reality that many Muslim women face each and every day. It is in stark relief to Muslim women that are used as poster children of the Muslim feminist `movement’.

Many in the West are hopeful that Islam will undergo a reformation at the hands of Muslim women. That it is just a matter of time before Muslim women will wise up, figure out what must be done, and stand together in unity to march for their equality and human rights.

EX-Muslims are seen by apostates by Islam and in many ways the worst of the worst. Is it any wonder they suffer demonisation and discrimination for no reason other than they believe in freedom of religion and conscience.

Legitimate human rights abuses toward Muslim women, eg the burkini ban, are so disproportionately focused on in comparison to a far more staggering scale of transgressions and abuses towards women in Muslim communities globally.